I followed the caravan for a while, playing a few more songs before we parted. The feeling of making music, of seeing them smile, made it so that I all but danced back to the camp. Bors was grinning. He didn’t even ask to spar. I offered anyway, which coaxed an even wider smile from the man.
This was a simple sparring session, lacking the underlying current of frustration our other bouts had held. The man felt distracted, pensive almost, not sothing I’d co to expect from the blunt Knight.
“A penny for your thoughts, Bors. You seem not yourself,” I asked as we sat down to cook for the evening. The caravan had traded so beef with us, which was a welco change from our gay fare.
“I envy you, Taliesin, for having sothing you enjoy outside of battle.” The man sat, pulling up the earth beneath him to form a chair. “I am here because I tend to find trouble. When I grow bored, I seek a fight to entertain myself. When I’m angry, I fight to let off steam. When I’m sad, I fight to lift my spirits. I wish I had sothing else that so occupied , sothing I could embrace as you do your music.”
“Are there no hobbies, crafts, or pursuits you enjoy?” I asked the big man. He was hardly alone among cultivators, many being focused solely on fighting and improving themselves through fighting. If anything, I was the odd one for being so diverse in my attentions.
“I have to be stronger. I feel like doing sothing that doesn’t make stronger is akin to retreating. So, no, I have nothing else. Well, I used to have my fellow Knights but—” he gestured around him at the lack of companions, then his shoulders slumped.
“I am in a different situation. I am not sure what I want. Well, that’s not true. I know I wish to make music, but that is an action, not the end goal.”
“Do you not have sothing you’re aiming for? Do you not wish to master the Fae courts? I thought you didn’t like Divine Cultivators? Do you not aim to challenge them?” Bors seed shocked that I lacked a clear goal. It wasn’t an unfair assumption to think I had so guiding principle. Cultivation was strengthened by purpose. Concepts, the defining power of Iron Rank, all but demanded sothing that reflected your underlying ambition.
My only real ambition had been to escape. Now I was out, I wanted to live for myself, to play music. I had a goal to see my darling Sephie again, the one person I’d actually liked during my incarceration. That was a long-term plan. In our last set of coded ssages, she’d all but warned she was going to be going into hiding for so ti. Considering she was as adept as I at sneaking under the noses of the powerful, it ant that it might be years till I found her.
“I’m still working out what I want. I know what I’ll do. I will happily take down any Divine Cultivator I can, and I will sing and dance. Do I want to commit everything to hunt down my enemy? No. Equally, do I want to be the most celebrated bard in all the land? No. I wish to be . To be Taliesin. If I don’t take ti to be myself, how can I hope to even work out what I want?” I mused that as we prepped dinner. I was good at tending the fire. I didn’t permit the smoke to smother .
“That’s helpful. Do you reckon that’s why I’ve been stuck here? To work out who I am?”
“I an, I can’t tell you that for certain, but that sounds like sothing the Knights I knew might pull.” I was often irked by my instructors, who always seed to delight in finding the most roundabout thods to achieve the simplest of things.
If you want to think about myself, just tell . Don’t give sothing mind-numbing to do and expect not to spend the ti thinking about alchemy or sothing else worthwhile.
“Hm, sothing for .” Bors remained quiet for the rest of the al. After dinner, he settled down and pulled out sothing I’d not seen before. It was an Illuminated Text. From the amount of gold and work that had gone into it, I could sense it was a manual of rare power, holding so technique that would be the pride of any Order who found it.
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His brows were knitted, and I could see his lips moving along with the words. Bors often played the oaf, but he was smarter than he pretended to be. He also held up a chunk of rock in his other hand and kept turning to stare at it.
“Anything I can help with?”
“Depends. Do you know what ‘prithee and thus one must avail thyself of humour of the striations and earthly histories most subli’ ans? Because it sounds like a load of bollocks to .”
“Ah, you don’t know the rule?”
“What rule?”
“Almost anyone who commissions an Illuminated Text also has to find the most complicated way to say anything. It’s like part of the job.”
“So, I’m not going crazy? I thought for a mont I was actually as dumb as people say.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the scowl I’d co to know as a sign he was struggling with the events that led to his temporary exile.
"Look, can I help? I know all that stuff about texts, but I swear on my honour I’m not an earth cultivator."
"No offence, I don’t need an oath to know you’re not an earth cultivator." He flopped back and passed the book over.
"How so?" I took a mont to appreciate the beautiful binding. The outer cover was in polished silver, detailed with gold, and the face was set with slices of crystals. Their strange formations reminded of the rings of a tree.
"Your dance earlier is one example. You’re like a leaf on the wind. If I didn’t know you were smoke and ash, I’d assu you were wind. I am stone; I am immovable until I beco unstoppable." The last part felt like a mantra, and even just him saying it made the glamour in the crystals hum.
"Small word of advice—you may want to avoid so casually sharing your intent with others." That was what took you to Iron. You had to understand your gifts. It often ford a sentence or concept about stating who you were, and what your power was. It was also ant to be sothing you only shared with your closest allies.
"Well, my night is just going fantastic. First, I can barely read the technique I’m ant to know by the ti they get back. Now, I’m sharing my inner truths. Also, don’t worry, that wasn’t the whole thing, but don’t spread it around." With each word his scowl was only intensifying.
"Let help. I’m a pretty trustworthy guy, you know. Besides, I’m good with this kind of writing; this is a bardic way of thinking." I got a grunt back.
The manual was thick, with so illustrations of movents, but the actual amount of text was limited. Reading it over the first ti made question if the author wanted anyone to ever actually learn it. The second read-through went a bit easier. The technique seed to have sothing to do with firing bits of rock.
I had been a right bookworm before now, so I felt I could unjumble so of the terms. I was no earth cultivator, so even what I did glean from it was confusing. It was only so alchemical knowledge and natural philosophy about crystals that allowed to piece together anything.
Crystals? I shut the book and stared at the cover, the slices of crystal catching the light. Fiddling with the cover, I found to my surprise that the circular crystals ca out, akin to a stained glass mural. I held it up to the firelight.
I had so ideas as to what it was trying to say, but just dumping them on my companion would only undermine him further. I needed to give him the tools to find the answer himself. I nudged his foot to get his attention.
"Two things. First, striations an the layers in the rock. There are so who believe these are ford over great periods of ti, layer upon layer." At those words, Bors exploded upwards, fury written over his face. He picked up the rock from earlier and hurled it into the woods.
I heard a tree collapse as he stomped away from . I curled in on myself, worrying I’d said sothing to offend. A roar of frustration followed, and Bors stamped back.
"That mouldy old coot! I know all about the layering thing, it’s what happens in rock, no doubt. Striation is a ten-gold word for a copper concept. I thought it was sothing special and mystical. Stupid bloody word for it. My master just called it 'layers.' Weeks I’ve been at this."
"Other thing—this pops out, and doesn’t the fire look pretty through it." I offered him the crystal pane.
"Thanks, Taliesin. This really helps." He sat back, still huffing his frustration, and began to examine the pane. "Why’d he have to make it a puzzle? We’re both earth cultivators—this isn’t how we think."
"Maybe he was trying to get you to think differently."
"I hate that you’re probably right. I should’ve started hanging around bards earlier. Arty and Gan were all about ditating on the inner aning—no bloody use if the words don’t make sense."
"Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Striations are not the worst. Want to guess what percolation ans?" A mont of mute silence. "It ans to be filtered."
"What utter bastard thought that one up?" Bors was back in good cheer. We spent a companionable evening exploring the daftest words I could scrounge up, while he kept looking through the crystals, and I could sense little bursts of earth glamour and so other form of glamour I didn’t recognise from him.
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